


On Love and Associated Leavings

by BelladonnaWyck, justlikeyouimagined



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Hannibal is a little tore up about it, M/M, Will Graham Dies, some brief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 20:36:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21259277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelladonnaWyck/pseuds/BelladonnaWyck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikeyouimagined/pseuds/justlikeyouimagined
Summary: If you have a cruel streak, there is a pleasure in knowing someone loves you more than you love them. It makes you feel powerful in your mind, they shift. Their smell changes. It becomes soft, weak. They become a thing you can hunt or disregard or pounce on or bend just for the fun of seeing how long they take to break.Akwaeke Emezi,‘On Love and Associated Leavings,’Rookie on Love





	On Love and Associated Leavings

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Kinkterror 2019 Day 31 - Wildcard. 
> 
> It features Major Character Death in the form of Hannibal killing Will. Please mind the warnings and skip this one if that isn't something you want to read on this most Hallowed Eve!

“Explain to me what it is you’re showing me, Jack,” Kade said with a degree of taken aback horror. Before her was a hacked-out piece of heavy wooden flooring, dark stained and housing a single perfectly round hole.

“You know as well as I do what a bullet hole looks like, Prunell,” Jack answered, his strong body weary and resting upon his tented fingers placed just beside the evidence. “We need to push through a warrant immediately, take Lecter in for questioning. There’s something in that house, we just need the time to find it.”

Kade looked up, aghast. “This is from Lecter’s home?!”

Jack blinked once in response. 

Kade backed away, as though the physical distance might do well to blur her sense of the injustice Jack had just laid upon her desk. 

“Jesus, Jack! Have you lost your mind? You mean to bring me a piece of the man’s floor _before_ you have enough evidence for the search warrant? You realize what a tremendous maelstrom of shit you’ve just sucked us into with this?” 

“We don’t have _time_ for this,” Jack said impatiently, his hand balling into a fist upon the desk. 

He’d noticed the incongruity in the otherwise pristine flooring over aspic the previous night. He hadn’t slept at all later, mulling over the what-ifs and how-comes that surrounded what looked to be damning evidence against Lecter. By seven this morning, he had convinced himself of only one way forward: get the piece of flooring into the BAU, confirm his suspicions, and get Lecter. Before he returned back to his home. _Before_ his final appointment of the day with Will Graham.

“Ballistics match it to Beverly’s gun. She was there. Kade, she _fought back!_ If we don’t act immediately, we’re putting another one of our own in serious danger.”

Kade pivoted about the room, the tension cramping her normally quick, fluid movements. Finally, she turned to face him. “And how are we supposed to act?! You’ve broken into the man’s home and removed what may be the only piece of evidence tying Agent Katz to Lecter. To any of this, Jack!”

“It won’t be the only piece of evidence, I’m sure--” Jack started, but Kade cut him off with a wave of her hand.

“Jack Crawford, your behavior here is staggering. You’re so beyond not thinking clearly, you’ve put yourself and the entire department at risk for what - a whim?” Kade paused, closing her eyes and forcing air out between clenched teeth. “I understand your wife is very ill. I’m putting you on forced compassionate leave, effective immediately. Leave your badge and gun; I’ll call agents to escort you off the property.”

“Prunell! By not doing anything with this, you’re putting Will at risk. Lecter will see this - he’ll come for Will. We _cannot_ do nothing!”

“As of this moment, this is officially no longer your concern,” She pointed to the empty space on her desk beside the sawed-off flooring. “Your gun and your badge. Immediately.”

\---

Will couldn’t believe he was sneaking around the BAU like some sort of criminal, a fox in the hen house. After Jack’s frantic call earlier, Will had calmed the man as best as he could while internally seething at his actions, and promised to replace the missing piece of Hannibal’s floor. 

He’d already dodged Jimmy, but it appeared his luck had run out when he slammed, literally, into Zeller coming around a corner. 

“Where are you going with that?” Zeller pointed accusingly at the wood sticking partially out of Will’s jacket. _Well fuck._ So much for quick and easy extraction. He checked the clock on the wall in the room Zeller had just exited. It was already three in the afternoon. He needed to replace this piece of wood and get to Hannibal’s office by seven for their weekly appointment. 

He locked eyes with Brian, and let himself sink into him just a little, just enough to try and determine which angle to take to explain this and gain his trust. He followed the thread he found most likely to gain him aid, it wasn’t difficult to follow it; he missed Beverly too.

“It’s for Bev. I can’t go into details, but Jack is following a lead.” True enough, all things considered. 

“Jack’s on compassionate leave. He shouldn’t be _following_ anything.” 

“Brian, this could help us put away the person who killed Beverly and displayed her like some sort of fucking sideshow act. The person who has tortured and killed countless others and mocked us while doing so,” Will was irritated, he wanted this all to be over. He regretted hitching his cart to Jack’s wild, unpredictable horses. 

Brian took another long look at Will, as though assessing him in turn, and then nodded. “Okay. For Bev, I didn’t see anything. Haven’t seen you in days. Get outta here, Graham.” 

Will didn’t have to be told twice.  
\---

The lock had been easy enough to pick, Will had a colorful past in his youth, and Hannibal was the sort of rich that came with a lack of care for his possessions. He didn’t need a complicated security system when he was an apex predator with money to spare; he’d simply kill any infiltrator and buy new shit. 

Will was hunched over the floor, looking down at a lost cause. Jack had butchered the wood when he’d removed it, it would never fit back properly with the rest of the panel. Hannibal _would_ notice, it was only a matter of how long they might have to prepare for the consequences his noticing might bring. 

Will wiped some sweat from his brow and finished filling in some of the wider gaps with a dark putty in a similar color to the wood. He was so engrossed in the task that he managed to miss the soft, susurrous sound of the front door being opened. 

\--- 

Hannibal smelled the intrusion immediately: the honeyed sweat that was undeniably Will… and something else. A sort of industrial plasticine reek that would barely register to most felt to him like a burning in his nostrils. It poisoned the carefully curated bouquet that normally greeted him upon entering his home. 

He stopped dead in the foyer, considering. Deeper into the heart of the home was silence; Will wasn’t supposed to be here and apart from his tell-tale redolence, Hannibal would be none the wiser. Betrayal panged within in his chest, unraveling its tendrils to hold captive his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. 

Hannibal closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, searching the home for its source. He zoomed about the rooms in his mind, landing like an explosion in the dining room that shook the delicate glass panels of the mantle’s lights and set the curios on the corner hutch rattling. 

Will was there, amongst the herbs and oxen horn. The intrusion wasn’t in the basement then, though the realization brought with it no relief. Consciously, he tore himself away from treachery's grasp around his heart and set to formulating a plan. With carefully casual steps, he moved towards the foyer closet and placed his briefcase and grocery bag inside, then retrieved a woolen scarf that he wrapped around the clench within his throat. The greens would wilt in the dark warmth, but this was the furthest consideration from his mind. 

He took one last whiff of the air, trying to identify what mingled with Will’s fear, then pivoted on his heel and silently left the house. 

\---

When Hannibal swung open his office door at seven sharp, Will was standing just outside the threshold. Their eyes met and he registered the twitch of Will’s brow that he let slip before his composure resettled upon him like a veil. 

He’d not be dealing with the real Will tonight, he realized. His stomach churned uneasily, but he stepped back to welcome the man into his space. 

“Will, come in,” Hannibal opened the door wider by way of inviting him in; like the spider to the fly. 

“Doctor Lecter,” Will was detached, erecting new walls between them after Hannibal had spent so long tearing the old ones down to their moorings. Betrayal burned harsh and mean in his throat, it was a cruel, banal trait that Hannibal had even less esteem for than rudeness. 

His options unfurled in front of him, unwanted and unplanned for. Hannibal was not a man accustomed to being surprised or unprepared, but Will and his apparent deceit had left him reeling. 

“Would you like a drink?” Hannibal took a bottle of Bordeaux from his cabinet, pouring two stemless glasses. 

He passed one to Will and took his own in hand, sipping it slowly. Savoring it. Will downed nearly half of his own with one gulp. 

“It’s bitter; like the grapes are angry about being dead,” Will noted, flavors of tobacco and currant exploding on his tongue. 

“It’s a 2016 Chateau Lafite Rothschild that ideally would not be opened for another five years, but when amongst friends, one should always endeavor to celebrate.” 

Will raised his glass in a mock salute and downed the rest in seconds. Hannibal was immediately by his side to pour another serving. 

Will was drinking too quickly, a thin rivulet of wine spilling out of the corner of his plush lips and down his chin, dark and thick like blood. Hannibal imagined that color as a slash across Will’s throat, broad and bold, a place where he could reach in with his hands and touch the places Will’s deceit lived, coiled like a serpent and always ready to strike. 

Images flashed rapidly behind his eyes: his hands covered in Will’s poisonous blood as he pulled his still-beating heart from his chest, ripped his quieted lungs from behind the bone cage of his ribs. He wanted him to hurt, to be aware of Hannibal’s own suffering even as he suffered. 

Another part of him, a more human element that Will had started to awaken, wanted it over quickly. Rapid, but no less intimate. Perhaps with his sturdy hands wrapped almost lovingly around Will’s pale neck, thumbs pressing in to cut off both air and blood flow. It would be almost like going to sleep for Will: Hannibal’s face the last hazy thing he would see before unconsciousness overcame him and then sweet death took him. It would almost be _polite._

“Hannibal?” Will’s voice, the caress of Hannibal’s name from his lips, brought him back to this moment, in this room. 

“Apologies, Will. It really is an excellent wine.”

He took another sip and let his gaze trail off into the depths of the roaring fire. His mind churned with possibilities, forking paths that seemed to end abruptly in crimson and steel. 

“I have an unconventional request to begin tonight’s session; if you’ll indulge me,” he said into the fire.

Will’s head snapped up, his eyes wider by a fraction than they had any right to be. It’s what fear does to the body, he thought, it opens the senses to take in as much as they are able. Will was scared, and he nearly hid it well enough behind his distance to deceive. Nearly; if Hannibal hadn’t already known of his previous intrusion.

He deliberately let his request hang for a moment, appreciating the wine before the fire. Will waded in the crackling silence, seemingly unwilling to probe. At last, Hannibal continued, “I’ve spent many years here, more numerous than I had at first expected. I’ve built a comfortable life around myself and my practice. But in this ephemeral existence, this has always been a temporary stopping place.”

Will looked at him, curious. His finger traced the delicate, rounded line of the glass and down its curved side. “You’re leaving?” he asked, his voice revealing greater emotion than intended. It tugged at the part of Hannibal that wished he hadn’t stopped home briefly before this appointment. To be willfully blind, this is what the man before him made him want. 

“Not alone, I hope,” Hannibal looked up to meet Will’s gaze, shifting his features in cautious expectation to show Will. He watched the slow blink as Will registered the request, caught the twitch of a smile before it was replaced once again with his subscribed stoicism. That - right there - should have lit him from inside quick like kindling. But devoid of the intention to act on what he asked, Hannibal felt as hollow as a drum. 

Will didn’t immediately respond, as he had expected. He let his eyes shift to his own wine to allow the man a sliver of privacy in order to mull over the request. It felt intrusive, being so close to him as he considered such an intimate proposition.

“When would we leave?” he asked, finally, after downing the last of his second glass. The lack of respect he paid to such a fine vintage might have enraged Hannibal if the situation had been different. If it hadn’t been Will before him. If he hadn’t already felt so ambivalent towards the man. 

“The day after next. I would need some time to get a few affairs in order,” Hannibal replied, offering up the bottle to refill Will’s empty glass. Will waved him away coldly, which might have prickled something in him if the situation had been different. If Will hadn’t then moved towards the liquor cabinet himself and opening it, sought out the bourbon Hannibal had stocked specifically for him in the back. 

“I would have expected a man like you to already be prepared. In case of emergencies,” Will over poured himself a glass and took a too-long sip of the expensive amber liquid. 

“There are levels to my preparedness,” Hannibal admitted, moving over to collect the first of many books pre-selected and resting on his desk. “With your participation, I needn’t rush quite as much as I might otherwise.”

Will walked up to take his place once again beside him. Having Will this close sent a shiver up his arm, racing up his peripheral nerves to burst deliriously at the base of his skull. 

He didn’t want to miss this. Not yet. 

“What did you have in mind, Doctor?” Will’s voice was teasing, close to the animal he used to be around Hannibal, but still so distant that Hannibal didn’t recognize the scent of it. 

“An anointing, of a kind,” he nodded towards the fireplace, the fire already burning hot and bright behind the grate. 

“Purification through fire. How very puritan of you,” Will chuckled, though the sound was dark, mirthless. Hannibal wondered again where things had twisted into such an unrecognizable shape. When Will had become so utterly disappointing. 

Hannibal crossed the short distance to the fire, taking a few loose pages of patient notes, notes he’d taken on Will, and tossed them into the flames. He watched them in silence for a long moment as the edges yellowed, and then curled and turned black before collapsing into nothing but ash. 

He turned and gestured towards the small, neat pile on his desk, inviting Will to join him in the immolation. 

“If you insist.” Will picked up a page, peering at it for several seconds. “It’s coded. I’m not sure why I’m surprised.” He moved to the fireplace, ripping the page in half before throwing it into the fire. 

***

When the final pages from the final book were sent fluttering into the dying embers in the hearth, Will turned and looked at him for the first time in an hour. The placated deadness of his features shifted and tilted in the light of the flames such that Hannibal felt a wavering uncertainty that he was most unaccustomed to experiencing. 

He reached out to place a steadying hand upon Will’s shoulder, as if to will the turbulence hidden just beneath Will’s surface to still. He took a step closer, examining. Will let slip a small smile, some fragile wisp of true emotion. 

“And now we can begin anew?” Will asked. The way he chose the words sounded almost like a plea.

Hannibal squeezed his shoulder in response, for once unable to find the words. He took in a long inhale, meant to settle himself as much as to collect his thoughts.

It did quite the opposite.

Amidst the familiar odors of the space: of Will’s cologne, of his books, of the dying fire beside them, two smells stood out. The first, the caustic plastic burn from before when he had stepped into his home. A marker of Will’s betrayal. The second, far more damning:

Ms. Freddie Lounds. 

Faint, fading, but unmistakable. Will mustn't have had time to shower before his arrival, Freddie’s cloying perfume still clung to him.The lurid stench of bergamot rose that never failed to wrinkle Hannibal’s nose upon her arrival. 

A rage billowed outwards and up, willing him to shift his hand, wrap his fingers about Will’s neck and _squeeze._ Hard enough to imagine the scent flying off from Will’s clothing, his hair, his skin - for now that he smelled it, the space reeked only of Lounds. As though the act of pressing his hand to Will’s shoulder had scattered her effluvium like dust in the still air. 

Instead, he took another steadying inhale, careful not to let his disgust show, and squeezed Will’s shoulder again. 

Will shifted, seemingly to lean minutely into his touch, as though he wanted to rest his cheek upon Hannibal’s slender fingers but wouldn’t allow himself such a disclosure. Like most of what Will had shown him tonight, he thought this too was a disappointment. Performative. Emotional and reactionary expectations that weighed heavily on Will and crafted him into a creature made up of other people’s desires rather than his own. An unworthy apparition. A strawman without a heart. 

“Fire may cleanse metal or stone, but it consumes lesser materials. Paper, like flesh, perishes with enough heat.” As he spoke he watched for Will’s reaction, but none came. The normally expressive lines about his features were stayed. The only movement: the frantic pulsing dance of blood under his skin, from just below the ear cascading down the lines of muscle in his neck. Did he know he’d been made? Was this the source of his exaggerated reticence? 

Did it matter? 

“Then what was this all for, then?” Will asked.

“Sometimes it is the ritual of the cleansing that proves most rewarding,” Hannibal answered. Couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he understand this wasn’t about destroying evidence nearly as much as it was about revealing truths in the process? And what truths had been laid bare. 

“And has it - been rewarding?”

Hannibal pressed his lips together, showing only a sliver of the chasm of dissatisfaction he felt himself plummeting into. “Illuminating.”

He let himself sink into Will, imagined it was a similarly uncomfortable feeling to what the man’s mantle of empathy probably often brought him, and could almost _feel_ his desperation. His confusion. He was a boat left unmoored on a frantic, rolling ocean, and he had no resolve. His lack of surety just further disgusted Hannibal. Will Graham had nearly made _him_ feel rudderless and unsure. He couldn’t imagine a worse fate. 

He could taste Will’s desire for him, wild and chaotic as it filled the space, his arousal spicy and nearly strong enough to overwhelm the lingering scent of Freddie. It clawed at the edges of Hannibal’s awareness, like an animal beating itself against its cage. 

Hannibal wasn’t above baser desires. He would readily admit that he had, at one time, harbored feelings for Will that would have lead them here eventually. His mind was already made up, he would become intimately acquainted with Will tonight, so why not allow them both to enjoy it? For just a little while. 

He stepped into Will’s personal space, looming above the man, pulling his scent into the roof of his mouth like an animal, the unadulterated smell of Will Graham had long ago been stored in the myriad of vaults within his memory palace. 

Dipping low, moving slowly and with obvious intent so that Will could move away if he didn’t want it, Hannibal took Will’s lips in a kiss that was almost painfully tender. Hannibal couldn’t stop the onslaught of potential futures that all passed behind his eyes in a blaze, their scents blending with the smell of smoke and ash on the air of the quiet office. All those opportunities. All those possible outcomes, beautiful becomings. Destroyed. There would be a reckoning, but not the one Hannibal had so desired.

He put away thoughts of their past or considerations for their future. Their past would exist as long as he did, in his memory palace. Their future no longer concerned him. All paths now pointed to a reckoning of a more final variety.

At first, Will stood frozen, his lips parted slightly and yielding to Hannibal’s gentle pressure. From between them, he sucked in a sharp, shakey inhale, just shy of a gasp. His head tilted down, breaking the soft contact between their lips, and once again, Hannibal was filled to the brim with a new form of disappointment. Could he have misread Will’s desires? 

The separation lasted only a heartbeat though, as Will probed Hannibal’s eyes for some sliver of emotion. He would find what he needed there, Hannibal was sure. He had known lust for this man before, had felt the sucking allure of it in private when he imagined what glory might await Will after he transformed. It wasn’t so long ago. He could bring forth the same desirous wanting enough to fool the touch-starved man before him. 

Will pressed their lips together again, unsure, nearly quivering in his gentleness. It sparked in Hannibal a memory of what might have been. Where once he might have felt overwhelmed, now he felt nothing at all. Still, he leaned in and deepened the kiss, bringing one hand up to weave into the messy curls at the nape of his neck. Their bodies pressed together, cautious so as to not cross any unseen boundaries. Will let out a satisfied sigh into his mouth when with his other hand Hannibal smoothed the worn fabric of his henley, resting it in the muscular curve of his lower back.

With his teeth, he slid the sharp edges over the plush of Will’s lips, drawing another sharp intake of breath. Will kissed like he was desperate for it, Hannibal recognized with some degree of satisfaction and bitterness. If betrayal hadn’t burrowed so deep into Will’s heart, this would have been a coming together they would’ve written sonnets to remember. 

Will broke their kiss like a drowned man tasting the cold sting of fresh air after too long; he closed his eyes and lifted his head up to the ceiling where he wasn’t crowded by Hannibal. In response, Hannibal leaned into the muscled expanse of neck presented before him, pressing soft kisses along the curve of sinew, feeling the rabbiting pulse just beneath the surface. He let the tips of his teeth test the young flesh there, only a nip, though he imagined his jaw unhinging and locking in, ripping apart the skin to display the feast within. 

From behind, he slipped his hand just beneath the edge of cotton to feel the warm skin hidden below. The fabric moved up easily as his splayed hand traveled along Will’s spine, touching lightly enough to erupt goosebumps on the surrounding flesh. 

“_Yes,_” Will sighed, barely audible, before leaning in to place his lips back onto Hannibal’s once more. His hands rubbed lightly - almost reverently - up Hannibal’s suit jacket before grabbing hold of his lapels and tugging his jacket open. “I’ve wanted -” he began, then stopped, too overwhelmed with what he meant to convey.

Hannibal pulled off, his face softening at the longing presented before him. This is what Will would want, he considered: a receptive, gentle lover. He could give him that, he could channel those emotions coming off Will and play them back for him to get lost in. 

“Shh,” Hannibal soothed, his hand coming forward to wipe a stray curl behind his ear. “We can both get what we want tonight.”

_”Please,_ Will groaned, clearly growing impatient and desirous with need. Hannibal wanted to rein that in, shape it into a form he desired; wanted to drink down Will’s passion, enjoy it like one would a fine wine so that he could keep it forever frozen in amber. 

“Come, darling Will,” Hannibal murmured against Will’s blotchy cheek, his skin warm and radiantly pinkened from arousal and embarrassment. _Shame._ Hannibal’s brain provided unhelpfully as he guided Will to the oft unused chaise that sat just outside of their much more commonly used chairs. 

When they sat, Hannibal could see the clear line of Will’s desire through his pants, his shirt still riding up his abdomen to expose the soft skin there. Hannibal imagined what it would feel like if he simply used his teeth to cut Will’s traitorous heart from his chest, severing muscle and sinew and scraping bone to claim what was rightfully his. 

Will’s arousal did not wane, but he seemed to be trying to collect himself. Hannibal didn’t give him the space to do so, sitting close and placing a warm, wide palm on Will’s upper thigh, his pinky just barely brushing Will’s groin. 

“We, uh, shouldn’t we talk about this before jumping into the deep end?” Will tried for levity but it fell flat as he rubbed his palm haphazardly over his face and through his curls. Hannibal watched him, fascinated at the glimmering hints of the creature he could have become. He had been so close, the paper-thin chrysalis the only barrier to his becoming, and yet he had still fallen hollow, afraid, and so very disappointing. 

“Should we?” Hannibal returned. 

Will huffed out a small laugh, a flickering spark of joy under an otherwise taciturn demeanor. He shook his head slightly but leaned forward to press his lips to Hannibal’s once more, this time with greater force, more determination. _There’s my boy,_ Hannibal thought distantly.

The henley came off and fell in a moss-green pile at Will’s feet. Hannibal admired the smooth surface of Will’s chest, letting his fingers trail from collarbone to belt buckle. For his part, Will barely let out a breath, catching himself up in the sensation of Hannibal’s delicate hands. Hannibal’s mouth worked down Will’s neck, leaving suggestable prickling red marks over his neck and chest. When he gently pressed back on Will, he buckled backward without hesitation, laying his head at the top of the chaise and moving his legs to either side of the lounger. 

Hannibal slotted into the space made for him, deftly unfastening his belt and unzipping his trousers. Will made a quiet groan under his breath, his hips tilting upwards invitingly. 

Once upon a time, he would have lost himself in this moment, for it would have meant a union that marked the beginning of glorious new chapters in their lives. He still might be able to catch the tail end of the sensations, if he pushed himself to try. Hannibal nuzzled his face insistently into the straining bulge in Will’s boxers, forcing out an appreciative noise. It wouldn’t come naturally, what he had decided to do, but the subtle licking pleasure that his actions sent down to his groin would be enough to follow through. 

Hannibal pulled at Will’s clothing, and he rocked his hips forward to allow them to gather about his thighs. Will’s interest stood before him, bright pink and shining, so stiff it rose up nearly to touch his navel. Hannibal inhaled his scent - purer here than wherever else he had been tainted - then slid his tongue from balls to tip. At the first soft taste, Will’s cock twitched. A shiver ran down his legs. It was too easy, Hannibal thought to himself, before doing it again. 

“Han-hannibal,” Will breathed out a sigh, his legs trying to press closed even as Hannibal pushed them further apart with his elbows, keeping Will spread open and vulnerable in front of him. He considered for a moment before taking Will into his mouth more readily, his lips slipping along Will’s cock and dragging his foreskin with them. 

Will bucked up helplessly into Hannibal’s mouth, not quite far enough back to bump against his throat. Hannibal braced his arm over Will’s thighs, keeping him still. He sucked at the weeping tip of Will’s cock on every upward motion, laving his tongue against his slit and then back down. He cradled his balls with one wide palm, squeezing them gently as Will moaned and writhed against him. 

“I’m going to come in a minute if you don’t stop-” Will groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes in embarrassment, the shame coloring his cheeks a bright, pleasing pink, the inside of a rare steak. Hannibal pulled back, letting Will’s cock slip free of his lips as he cleared his throat discreetly to speak.

“That is the general goal,” Hannibal allowed a chuckle to color his voice with fondness as he licked coyly at the pre-come sliding out of Will’s slit. Will tasted divine, like the salt of the earth, the brine of the brackish swamp waters of his youth, like vitality. Hannibal would have quite liked to allow himself to become addicted to it if things had been different. 

“What do you want, dear Will? Do you want my mouth? My fingers? Or perhaps you would like me in another way altogether, to pierce between my thighs and have me take you inside. Insinuate yourself as deeply within me as I have burrowed inside of you,” Hannibal knew what he wanted, he wanted to sit astride Will’s lightly haired thighs and take him into his body, know him as intimately as it was possible to know another person as he watched the light fade from his eyes. He wanted to take this one final intimacy from Will, knock down just one more wall. 

Will let a pained noise out through his teeth at the last suggestion and nodded frantically. “You,” he panted. “Always you.”

Hannibal pulled his lips off his cock again. A string of saliva pulled taut between his lips and the moist head; Hannibal swiped his tongue over his lips to break the connection. Will pushed himself up on his elbows as though to help, but Hannibal shook his head once to indicate he lay back down. He stood up, beginning to unbutton his vest before Will. Before he began on his shirt, he moved slowly through the warmed space, pulling a small glass container from his massive desk. Will smirked at him when he recognized the container as lotion. 

Then he was back, standing just out of reach of Will, taking his time to remove his tie and shirt. After that, his trousers, until at last his briefs slip down toned lean thighs and he stood before Will naked. His eyes burned from the heat they shared between their locked gaze. 

“Come here,” Will whispered, shucking off his pants and boxers to match Hannibal’s nudity. He stroked his cock once, unable to help from touching himself. 

Hannibal took up his place between Will’s thighs and made sure to let out what he felt would read as an enraptured smile. With the container open, he let the lotion run down upon Will’s shaft and took him in hand to spread the mess around. He then got up on his knees and made to straddle Will’s narrow hips.

“Don’t you - “ Will hesitated, unsure how to phrase what he wanted to ask. “I can help… get you ready?” he asked, his chest blooming pink with embarrassment. 

Hannibal let out a low chuckle and smiled, this time more genuinely. “I want to feel all of you, Will. Take your time. Savor this gift we have presented before us.”

Will nodded haltingly but bucked up eagerly when Hannibal’s thigh grazed his slick shaft as he swept his leg over. Their attention focused on the dry private heat of Hannibal’s pucker as it pressed slowly but insistently down against Will’s slick head. 

“Fuck,” Will breathed out on a shaky exhale, his entire body tight with tension. At Hannibal’s raised brow, he continued. “It’s been a while,” he didn’t offer any further explanation and Hannibal didn’t require one. A hedonist by nature, he had taken many lovers, of all varieties, throughout his years. 

“For me as well,” he reassured, leaning back for a better angle as he continued to take Will into himself.

He held back a grimace as his body adjusted slowly, allowing a soft moan to push past his lips instead, enticing and insensing. A distraction. He’d rarely been so careless with his own body or comfort, but he found that he was as reckless as always where Will was concerned, even now. Even after such mounting and insidious disappointment. 

“God, you take it so well,” Will let the words slip from his tongue and Hannibal could see his immediate regret, how he pulled his bottom lip firmly into his mouth and didn’t release it again, as though trying to silence himself from further embarrassment. 

Hannibal would normally be fascinated, eager to hear what sort of filth Will might express for him while overwhelmed by desire, but he found the words fell hollow and weightless against him. They were laced with poison, dripping from Will’s tongue like barbs. Hannibal bent forward to kiss him instead, sealing the silence between them. 

As he leaned down, he let his hand slip up Will’s smooth chest and rest in the shallow indent above where his clavicles met. Will arched up into Hannibal’s gentle grip, breaking their lips apart to expose more of his muscled neck.

“You like this?” Hannibal asked, playing with the pressure of his fingertips about Will’s neck. 

Will swallowed hard, the action causing an undulating movement just below his grip. He looked up at Hannibal, searchingly. Finally, he nodded once, shamed. As a small reward, Hannibal sunk entirely down onto Will, pulling from them both small huffs in appreciation.

Will’s hands came to grasp at either side of Hannibal’s hips. He tuned into the changes in pressure and moved as directed: first with a soft press of his thumbs, coaching him back up, then in the other digits, grabbing greedily to have him sheath himself once more on Will’s thick cock. 

To be led by him - speared and rocked up and down - made warmth pulse and grow outward from his groin. This could have been something glorious, he thought bitterly.

He tightened his grip on Will’s throat and used the leverage it gave him to push himself up higher before sliding effortlessly back down. With every upstroke, he pushed a little more forcefully down onto Will’s tense throat, making his breath catch and a pink blush creep slowly over his face as he grew increasingly more winded. 

Will grew fainter with every additional pound of pressure, but still, he guided Hannibal’s hips forward and back with increasing need. Hannibal hovered over him, fascinated, watching as Will allowed the life to be pulled out of him with every passing second. 

Hannibal craved more, needed to experience Will’s flavor while he was still vibrant, and alive. While his blood still flowed freely and he was complicit in his consumption. As Hannibal continued to apply intentional pressure to Will’s throat, he knew that Will was aware of what was happening. Will was _allowing_ Hannibal to take his life. A coward’s way out of the troubling situation he had found himself in. It made Hannibal want to see him suffer. 

Will always suffered so beautifully. 

Hannibal bent low, snarling against Will’s parted lips. He blew into his mouth alongside the too-thin stream of oxygen that Will’s body desperately tried to pull into his lungs, past the obstruction of Hannibal’s firm, steady hands. 

Will’s eyes were closed and Hannibal would not allow him to be passive in this. “Look at me, Will,” Hannibal warned, fingers closing tighter around the life-supporting arteries that ran like rivers up Will’s neck and to his brain. 

Will’s eyes snapped open and, once Hannibal had taken his fill of looking into those depths, trying to glean something, anything redeeming, he parted Will’s lips with his tongue and bit harshly into his treacherous tongue, intending to rip it from Will’s body while he still lived to understand why. 

The human tongue is one of the thickest, strongest muscles in the body. Even with the hundreds of pounds per square inch a single bite might exert, to get through the organ takes some degree of effort. 

The first time, Hannibal didn’t cut clean through, and had to remove both hands from around Will’s throat to try again. One hand swept away Will’s frantic flailing; the other dug deep behind his heavy jaw, popping open his bloodied mouth with an agonizing scream. He lunged forward a second, then a third time, each instance drawing Will’s cock nearly fully out of his ass in a satisfying _shlick_. 

The high whine of Will’s panic bubbled up from the depths of his throat along with the fount of blood. It overwhelmed both their mouths nearly immediately, and sent Will gagging and choking. Unable to close his mouth for Hannibal’s fingers deftly holding open his mandible, his tongue drew back wide, feeding himself more blood and blocking his throat further. Tears sprung bright and heavy from the corners of Will’s eyes. As Hannibal pulled back, he noticed with a rumbling satisfaction that pain - not fear- was the primary emotion that distorted Will’s features. As though he knew he deserved exactly this.

With some effort, he sat himself back, bottoming himself out on Will’s faltering erection. The tip of Will’s tongue sat heavy in his mouth and he chewed at the tough muscle several times, gnawing at it with his molars until swallowing the macerated piece more or less whole. 

Hannibal let go of Will’s jaw, listening to the loud _click_ and ensuing wail when Will unintentionally popped it back in place with his gagging. The shock of watching Hannibal consume him was ripped away by the ensuing pain, and Will began to buck and thrash. Above him, Hannibal allowed the edges of his mouth to curl.

Will unseated him and managed to twist halfway on the chaise to let the basin of blood in his mouth flow out and stain the fabric. His legs kicked up uselessly, then scrambled at the end of the chaise, trying to use his considerable strength to buck Hannibal up and off. The struggle ignited in Hannibal a familiar energy, raw and primal: the need to dominate. He allowed the grappling battle with Will for a time, before taking hold of one wrist and twisting back so forcefully, they both paused with the sound of bones shattering beneath his grip.

Will tried to say something, perhaps to plead with him, reason with him, but all that gushed forth was more blood, thick and bright as it covered the work-tanned skin of his chin, his cheeks, as it painted his teeth brilliantly red, darker than the wine from earlier. 

“You have never looked more beautiful, Will,” Hannibal used his hold on Will’s wrists to turn him around and pull him to his chest. Hannibal shifted his hold to one hand easily so that he could drag his knuckles along Will’s wet cheek, a mixture of salted tears and blood coating his skin. Hannibal brought those same knuckles to his own mouth and took one past his lips, letting his tongue swipe over the fluids. He closed his eyes for a moment to savor the flavors. 

When he opened them again, Will was staring at him with a mix of awe and horror, and something else that Hannibal attributed to a still simmering arousal that Will seemed to be unable to shake. Will had been conditioned to crave Hannibal’s violence, had perhaps learned to associate it with his love. 

“I gave you something precious, and rare, Will. I gave you my regard, my love. I gave you an opportunity at a becoming that would have been wonderful and fearful to behold. I showed you glimpses and you have betrayed it all.” He paused for a moment, waiting, perhaps, for a final confession from Will. Looking, maybe, for anything that would stay his hand and save Will’s life. 

He found nothing. 

“I smelled her on you, earlier. Ms. Loud’s and her unfortunate perfume. I know you were in my home, with what intention I cannot imagine. But it is no matter. You have brought this conclusion upon yourself, Will. When there were so many possible endings, you have chosen this one. I am happy to oblige your self destructive tendency, but will not allow you to drag me down into the pit with you,” Hannibal’s voice was almost soothing, like the eyes of a cobra right before the strike: hypnotizing. 

Will made a gasping, sputtering noise, spitting blood and saliva down his chin. He made a motion to speak, but only choked on the viscous liquid. Closing his eyes, he furrowed his brow with agonizing effort and let out a guttural groan that sounded like ‘Stop’ or ‘Please’ or ‘I’m sorry’, or anything else Hannibal wanted to believe he might plead. 

“The time has passed for confessions, Will. Hold your tongue,” Hannibal said cruelly, bringing one hand to pinch both sides of Will’s cheeks to make his lips pucker like a fish. Will whipped his head back and forth, freeing himself from Hannibal’s hold. He met Hannibal’s glare and spat a thick wad of crimson that spattered over his face and upper torso. 

Hannibal growled, for a moment despondency replaced with a seething, humiliated anger. Will lashed out with his arm flailing, though Hannibal fought him off easily, his primal strength making his lean muscles in his chest and arms ripple. He trapped both wrists again in one hand and held them down by his navel, just out of reach of where his cock ached between his thighs. 

Will wailed, his one hand twisting at an unnatural angle as Hannibal ground the bones in his firm grip. His other hand came back around his throat and squeezed, pulling out a gurgling sound. Will’s muscles tensed and flexed and he struggled to free his good hand while he tucked his chin in to try to thicken his throat and steal a single sucking bloodied breath. 

It was no use. Hannibal had him.

“You would have been magnificent, Will,” Hannibal said, hushing the wounded moans that escaped through his firm grasp. Then he leaned himself forward and watched. As the fiery passion flickered and died behind the tears. As his gaze filled first with pinpricks of pink, then crushing veins to burst ruby red across the sclera. As the struggle wore out in his erratic kicking, bucking body. As, finally, the body below him quieted, then went limp. 

Fifteen. He counted fifteen exhausted seconds, then let go from Will’s throat, placing instead two fingers just above a soft, uneven pulse. He sat there, astride the slack body of one who he’d once considered could be his equal. What waste, laid before him. All potential squandered, and for what? Misplaced moral righteousness. 

Hannibal worked with efficiency, not finding that he needed to particularly hurry. He wanted to savor his remaining time with Will, he would enjoy this design. 

His heart would be all that Hannibal took from him, the only part of Will that hadn’t been infiltrated and infected by Jack Crawford’s influence. Heart tartare was a favorite dish of Hannibal’s, perhaps a traditional puttanesca modified for the cooler weather with olive oil and roasted red pepper to add to the sweetness of the meat. 

He would begin preparations for his final meal with Will Graham this evening while he gathered Abigail and the necessities of their new lives. But, ultimately, when the time for the meal came after a few days of letting the heart rest in the freezer, Hannibal would consume it alone. The thought sent an uncomfortable and unsettling pang through his own chest that he refused to look more closely at. His inconvenient feelings for Will would not save him this time. The teacup had shattered and would not make itself whole.

Hannibal took out his scalpel from his desk and went, briefly, to the small bathroom attached to his office to clean his hands and his tool of choice. He started a mental list of evidence that would need to be disposed of from his office.

Will was still unconscious when he returned. He lifted him with practiced ease born of decades of carrying dead weight, settling him almost gently down on the wide, wooden desk. 

Will had yet to stir, but Hannibal was sure he would awaken once he started his work. He made the first opening incision, a perfectly straight line horizontally across Will’s lower sternum. The scalpel was so sharp that no blood seeped from the wound for several long seconds. 

As expected, as he continued to slice into Will’s willingly parting skin, Will’s body began to show signs of stirring. First, gentle reflexive twitches in his fingers, then a grimace that snarled his lips and furrowed between his brows. Eventually, his sea glass eyes opened and he looked up at Hannibal in open horror. His body would go into shock soon enough, but Hannibal placed a preemptive hand on his chest, holding him down firmly with the weight of it. 

Will’s uninjured hand came up to clasp around Hannibal’s wrist, using all his strength to try to make him slip and lose his grip. Hannibal’s lips curled in a snarl as he felt half moons dig deep into the flesh of his wrist. He paused momentarily from deepening the slice across Will’s torso and swatted at Will with the scalpel. Will tried to grab at the blade, cutting deep to the bone. He hissed as the pain shot through his hand, bloody spit spurting from out of his mouth with the ensuing cough. 

“Close your eyes,” Hannibal began, wrestling the scalpel easily away from the crimson ribbons that made up Will’s grasp. “It will all be over soon enough.” He lied, knowing he would savour every twitch, every spasm as life spilled out of Will’s body.

Will made a pained moan, his breathing so heavy and fast that it was making the gaping wound in his stomach rip open at the edges. He whimpered when Hannibal leveraged his panting body, timing his lashing cuts into the thin fat and muscle of Will’s stomach with every terrified inhale. They bloomed wider that way, revealed the buttery yellow and wine-stained organs that rested just beneath the surface. 

The liver would have to go first, he reasoned, looking at the auburn-tinged organ and pressing an ungloved finger into the rubbery meat. 

By this point, Will was shaking uncontrollably, a quivering, pale thing doused in scarlet. It wouldn’t be long now, Hannibal reasoned with conflicted dismay. What he felt wasn’t regret, per se, only further discontent. Even in death, Will would prove a let down. 

He paused, soaking in Will’s last coherent moments. Once he began slicing into the organs, there would be little time to appreciate the agony he would undergo until shock took him mercifully into unconsciousness. 

Hannibal continued working, moving with a patient calmness, even as blood continued to bubble out around his scalpel, temporarily blocking his view, and thus, his progress. 

“We lived in wonder and terrible awe in a multitude of universes, just like this one. With the single difference being that what you lack here - conviction - was not missing from those worlds.” Hannibal knew his voice bordered on grousing, but he would allow himself this one simple act of pettiness after the bitter taste of disappointment had followed him throughout his day. 

Will’s eyes were unfocused, but directed at Hannibal. His gaze was normally shuttered behind glasses and steeped in hidden motives. Hannibal found he liked the rawness he saw in them as they swam in pain, Will unable to concentrate enough to hide anything from him. He’d never felt closer to him. 

“It will be over soon, Will. Now would be a time for you to wade into the quiet of your stream. You suffer so wondrously for me,” Hannibal’s voice remained soothing as he meticulously worked. 

The blood was flowing freely now, having sliced through part of the liver to reveal the diaphragm. He picked up his pace, feeling the pressure of time robbing him of the last moments of being witness to Will’s agonized beauty. With a quick, inelegant slice, he pierced through the diaphragm to reveal the lungs and heart above. 

Will immediately started coughing roughly, his breathing compromised by the onslaught of entrails pressing into the chest cavity. Lying down, it would be hard for him to catch his breath, and between hacking coughs he sputtered and gasped for air. His bright eyes shot wide; he understood that he had mere moments left. 

“You won’t go wasted,” Hannibal whispered, and something in Will calmed, reassured. Hannibal snaked his hands up below the sharp edges of rib and in between the spongy masses of lung. It was a squeeze, the fluttering failing pressure exerted on his hand by the half-inflating lungs made it difficult to move his fingers, but he pushed further in. 

Then there it was: the rabbitting, degrading _thump thump thump thump_ of his heart, at the very edges of his fingertips. A scintillating, fizzing sensation ran up the course of his arms and along his periphery and then back up to rest at his hindbrain. He let out a shuddering sound, so overwhelming was the experience, and pushed the last few inches in to hold the organ in his fist.

His mouth opened instinctively: the air was electric and he wanted to feel the buzz of it all around him. His eyes locked with Will’s and he blinked: once, slowly.

_Let go,_ he said, without having to speak at all.

_Goodbye._

Then: stillness. 

The sudden aloneness that he felt was palpable and it called up memories of sharp, cold nights and the smell, the almost black appearance, of blood on snow under a full moon. He’d felt alone then too. The ache of it replacing the gnawing ache of hunger in his belly the night his world had shifted. Events had not created him, Hannibal had forged himself, but they had honed his sharpest edges. Had colored his view of the ugliness in the world. 

Hannibal didn’t allow himself to sit in the still silence of his memories for too long. There was much to do and a limited amount of time to do it before he was simply being reckless. First, the body. Will’s body. 

Once removed, he placed the heart in a cooler he had brought, tucked beneath his desk and already prepared to receive Will’s heart. Like some fairy tale where Will was still alive and simply sleeping, without his heart while it was kept locked safely in a box, eventually to be housed inside of Hannibal’s own stomach. 

Once the meat had been handled, he set to work sewing Will up. He needed to transport his body back to his home, to the industrial incinerator concealed in his basement. He worked quickly and, once the wound had been dressed, Hannibal went to work gently cleaning up the blood from Will’s pale skin. He was already losing the flush of life as his blood pooled beneath him, and it had left his skin reminiscent of the snow of Hannibal’s youth. 

There would be no tableaux. No ugliness elevated to art. Will had been beautiful in life, and was equally beautiful in the calmness of death; perhaps even more so, his features more relaxed than Hannibal had ever seen them. At peace. 

Hannibal had brought plastic tarps with him, and he used those now to wrap Will’s body in a funeral shroud of clear plastic and blood. He cleaned until his office space practically glimmered in the low light, not a spot of visible blood to be seen. The wood had consumed it all, the life seeping into the heaving bones of the floorboards, as they gorged themselves on Will’s memories. 

Finally, he replaced his own clothes, neatly folding the old outfit and placing it in a bag he would also toss into the flames along with all the rest of the evidence.

Carrying him like a sacrificial bride over the threshold, he placed Will’s body into the trunk of his car. All that was left was for Hannibal to give a final look back into the place that had borne so many stories, so many intimacies. 

He closed the door. 

*** 

Hannibal settled back comfortably into his thick leather seat, listening to the echoes of other passengers lives, their stories all contained inside this space. He had taken the aisle seat, Abigail was a nervous flyer and he allowed her the window to gaze out of as they flew to Paris. He would leave her, for a time, to attend school there as he traveled. Perhaps first to Florence, or to Barcelona, Tokyo, or any number of places he had been already or desired to go. But that discussion would happen later. When she had more distance between her sorrow over Will’s loss. 

Hannibal could not find it within him to mourn as Will's heart still sat warm in his belly, burning as brightly as his body had burned when Hannibal had used the basement incinerator one last time. As bright as their passion had burned as they spent Will’s last moments together. 

Abigail had not eaten with him that morning as he had crafted Will’s heart into something less bitter than in life, flavorful and wild. He felt nourished, and as he watched Abigail take a tentative sip of her mimosa, he left Will free to roam the echoing halls of his memory palace.


End file.
